Summary

The “electronic Frailty Index (eFI)” is discussed, by NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Older People and Person Centred Integrated Care, as a validated tool which might assist in the proactive identification, diagnosis and management of frailty.

Potentially, the eFI can analyse data already collected and coded routinely within general practices to differentiate between older patients with mild, moderate and severe levels of frailty. The aim is then to target resources more precisely to better avoid the risk of costly adverse outcomes such as avoidable mortality, preventable hospitalisations or premature / unnecessary nursing home admissions.

“ …screening for frailty now creates the opportunity to identify people in our local populations living with severe frailty, thereby opening the way for targeted assessment of need and better coordination and planning for delivery of interventions. This provides us with greater opportunity to reduce the likelihood and impact of significant future life events”.

Reference

On Count-Based Scores for Measuring and Predicting Multimorbidity

Writing from a contrary position, probably, the authors of the following article appear to cast doubt on the value of count-based measures of multi-morbidity when it comes to predicting emergency admissions, functional decline and other adverse outcomes.